but a means by which we arrive at
that goal.- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today is also the birthday of the
poet, William Stafford

During the Second World War, he was a
conscientious objector by refusing to be inducted into the U. S.
Army. From 1940-1944 he was interned as a pacifist in civilian
public service camps in Arkansas and California where he fought
fires and built roads.

Just Thinking

Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a
window.
No cloud, no wind. Air that flowers held
for awhile. Some dove somewhere.

Been on probation most of my life. And
the rest of my life been condemned. So these moments
count for a lotpeace, you know.

Let the bucket of memory down into the well,
bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one
stirring, no plans. Just being there.

This is what the whole thing is about.

~ ~ ~

When I Met My Muse

I glanced at her and took my glasses
offthey were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. "I am your own
way of looking at things," she said. "When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.

~ ~ ~

Objector

In line at lunch I cross my fork and spoon
to ward off complicitythe ordered life
our leaders have offered us. Thin as a knife,
our chance to live depends on such a sign
while others talk and The Pentagon from the moon
is bouncing exact commands: "Forget your faith;
be ready for whatever it takes to win: we face
annihilation unless all citizens get in line."

I bow and cross my fork and spoon: somewhere
other citizens more fearfully bow
in a place terrorized by their kind of oppressive state.
Our signs both mean, "You hostages over there
will never be slaughtered by my act." Our vows
cross: never to kill and call it fate.

"That's all you have to do - just abide in that
stillness.

If you know how to be with that stillness without looking for
anything else then that stillness is no longer just a stillness
and
that stillness is the Buddha Mind, it is the luminous awareness.

In that stillness you are going to discover your true nature.

The discovery of your true nature is the true liberation, is the
bodhi, is the great awakening."

Our quality of listening does expand. At first we are
preoccupied by
our own individual song. Meditation helps us to step outside this
song
and tune into the great song that moves through all of us. The
great
song allows us to hear without judgement, without picking and
choosing
between the ten thousand different voices in the orchestral choir
of
life from the children's cries and laughter to the complaining,
whining voice, the silent voice of oppression, the weeping voice,
the
critical voice, the joyful, playful voice, the piercing voice of
the
currawong and the deafening voice of the crickets at
sunset. All are
intertwined in the song, all are part of ourselves, and yet we
are
none of these.

I first came across Sri Ramana's teachings in 1974 by reading
one of the few books about him that had been published in the
West. I read this book in a few hours and immediately my whole
world view was transformed. It wasn't just a new piece of
information that I could file away with all the other pieces of
knowledge I had stored in my brain; it was a living transmission
that completely changed the way I perceived myself and the world
around me. I didn't have to think about the teachings or convince
myself that they were true. I recognized the truth of them as
soon as I read them.

Nor was it just one set of beliefs being replaced by another.
It was more a case of a busy, searching mind being utterly
silenced by an exposure to the light of a higher power. In the
months preceding my discovery of Sri Ramana, I had bought and
read many spiritual books. The information they contained had
been stored in my memory, but none of it had truly touched me.
When I read Ramana Maharshi's words for the first time, my mind
actually stopped. I stopped searching and I stopped reading
spiritual books. The words had a power in them that silenced my
mind. I didn't judge these words and decide that they were
correct. The words themselves went straight inside me, stopped
the busy-ness of my questing mind and gave me a state of silence
that had within itself the conviction 'This is the truth'.

Living the Inspiration of Sri Ramana Maharshi
A dialogue between David Godman and Maalok

If we unbalance Nature, human kind will suffer.
Furthermore, we must consider future generations: a clean
environment is a human right like any other. It is therefore part
of our responsibility towards others to ensure that the world we
pass on is as healthy as, if not healthier than we found it.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

From "The Pocket Dalai Lama," edited by Mary
Craig, 2002.

"Through violence you may murder a
liar, but you can't establish truth.
Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can't murder
hate.
Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that."

~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
(Source unknown)

"Hatred can never be overcome by hatred. Hatred can only be
overcome by
love. That is the Eternal Law."

~The Buddha
(From the Dhammapada)

Blessings to all. May peace and peace and peace be
everywhere.

posted to Daily Dharma by DharmaG

"Into this mysterious universe we are
born, with no apparent set of instructions, no maps or equations,
no signs or guideposts, nothing but our equally unfathomable
instincts, intuitions, and reasoning abilities to tell us where
we came from, why we are here, and what we are supposed to do.
What we do possess - perhaps it the key to our survival as a
species - is an almost unquenchable need to know. A human being
comes into this world with a passionate sense of wonder and
inquisitiveness and an equally powerful need for self expression.
Yet, somehow these seemingly indelible primal imperatives become
eroded, as a rule, after only a few years exposure to modern
reality and contemporary educational methods."

Just a reminder of the man we remember, who
said in a speech 38 years ago:

When I speak of love I am not speaking of
some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force
which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme
unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks
the door which leads to ultimate reality. This
Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate
reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint
John:

Let us love one another; for love is God and everyone that
loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth
not God; for God is love. If we love one another God dwelleth in
us, and his love is perfected in us.

Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. We
can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the
altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by
the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the
wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this
self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says : "Love
is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life
and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore
the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is
going to have the last word."

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow
is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In
this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a
thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of
time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with
a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men"
does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately
for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea
and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of
numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too
late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully
records our vigilance or our neglect. "The moving finger
writes, and having writ moves on..." We still have a choice
today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.